She Must Be Seeing Things

Sheila McLaughlin’s rarely screened lesbian classic drew themes from her own life, as she explores the complex and emotional commitment of Agatha (Sheila Dabney), a lawyer and her girlfriend Jo, a filmmaker (Lois Weaver).

While Jo is out of town, Agatha becomes convinced Jo is cheating on her with a man. Revelatory for its representation of a new lesbian desire, a politicized eroticism that mirrored the burgeoning butch/femme scene at the time, the film was attacked by anti-porn feminists as it arrived at the height of the feminist 'Sex Wars'.

McLaughlin, together with Lizzie Borden and Bette Gordon, formed part of a small school of New York independent filmmakers that explored issues of gender and sexuality that had not until that time been addressed by Third-Wave Feminism, paving the way for future queer representations.